By William Kelly
A new, major motion picture about Bob Dylan, “A Complete Unknown,” is currently being filmed in Cape May. No, Dylan was never in Cape May, but his appearances at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival marked a significant point in his career as it was when he first performed, “Like a Rolling Stone,” in public and put aside his acoustic guitar and “went electric,” much to the dismay of folk music purists.
Because many of Newport’s quaint cottages and marinas have since been developed into condos, and Cape May has kept its Victorian charm, many of the Newport, R.I. scenes are being shot in the Jersey Shore town all this week. Cape May was chosen because it best resembles what Newport looked like in 1965. The streets are lined with period cars, and cameras are rolling, with some locals, dressed in 1960s fashions, being used as extras.
Dylan is listed as an executive producer, so the movie has his blessing. It’s based primarily on the book, “Dylan Goes Electric! – Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night that Split the Sixties” by Elijah Wald.
Directed by James Mangold, Timothee Chalamet portrays Dylan, with Elle Fanning portraying Dylan’s girlfriend at the time; Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Scoot McNairy as Woody Guthrie and Dan Fogler as Albert Grossman, Dylan’s manager. Mangold previously directed “3:10 to Yuma,” “Ford v. Ferrari,” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.”
There is a strong Somers Point connection to Dylan’s “going electric.” When he needed a band to back him on a world tour, he picked Levon and the Hawks, then the house band at Tony Mart’s.
As I recounted in the story in “Waiting on the Angels – the Long Cool Summer of ’65 Revisited,” serialized last year in Shore Local, and which Carmen Marotta will detail in his upcoming history of Tony Mart’s, Dylan’s choosing the Hawks to back him was a seminal event in rock and roll history and eventually led to the Hawks becoming The Band and heading to Woodstock.
When Dylan first called the Hawks at Tony Mart’s they only knew him as the writer of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” the song Dylan first performed at Newport in 1964, which The Byrds had electrified, adding drums and keyboards, and making it into a hit on the pop charts.
Dylan knew he had another hit after writing, “Like a Rolling Stone,” but it wasn’t a folk song and needed a rock band to play it right. He immediately went to his manager, Albert Grossman, and played it for him and another Grossman client, blues artist John Hammond, Jr. Hammond’s father, John Hammond, Sr., worked at Columbia Records where he signed Billie Holiday, Dylan, and later Bruce Springsteen, so he had a good ear for musical talent.
Grossman agreed that the song needed a rock band and began going through his rolodex to find one, but it was his secretary who was from Toronto, Mary Martin, who spoke up. She knew a really good rock band, Levon and the Hawks, and Hammond, Jr., who knew the Hawks from the Southern Chitlin’ Circuit, agreed.
Grossman called the Hawks’ booking agent in Toronto, Col. Harold Kudlets, but Kudlets explained that the Hawks were booked at Tony Mart’s through Labor Day.
In the meantime, Dylan took the stage at Newport on July 26, 1965, and with his acoustic guitar played, “It’s all Over Now Baby Blue,” then picked up his electric Fender Stratocaster, plugged it in and began “Like A Rolling Stone.” The audience gave a mixed reaction; some cheered, but many old fogies booed.
Then Dylan went into the Columbia studios to record the song with studio musicians, including guitarist Paul Butterfield. Al Kooper was there, but he played guitar and that instrument was already taken, so he sat down at the Hammond B3 organ. Despite not knowing how to turn it on, he played it on the recording and after the first take, Dylan said to “turn up the organ.”
The recording quickly rose up the pop charts, as they say – like a bullet, but after a few weeks it was stuck at No. 2, being overtaken by The Beatles. Dylan didn’t get a No.1 hit until his more recent, “Murder Most Foul,” about the assassination of President Kennedy.
Since Dylan’s tour was already booked and he needed the Hawks immediately, Grossman said he would double the Hawks Tony Mart’s salary, and when Col. Kudlets agreed to get Mitch Ryder (“Devil with the Blue Dress”) to replace them for Labor Day weekend, Tony let the Hawks out of the last week of their contract so they could go off and play on tour with Dylan.
Beginning at Forest Hills stadium in New York, the booing continued, so much so that drummer Levon Helm quit and took a job on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, being replaced temporarily by Micky Dolenz of the Monkees. After the tour was over, Dylan was severely injured in a motorcycle accident and recuperated at Grossman’s Woodstock, N.Y. vacation home, where the Hawks, still under contract, joined him.
Taking up residence in a pink, split-level house where they recorded the “The Basement Tapes,” Levon returned to the fold, and the local townspeople began calling them The Band, a name that stuck.
While the movie appears to be focusing on the Newport festival, Woodstock is mentioned and may play a part in the film. With Cape May filling in for the old Newport scene, the town is awash in a Hollywood makeover, classic cars, actors, lights, cameras and action, and maybe the real local angle will somehow make it into the film.
